January 2018

Flexxible IT today launched a new product for users of any size, bringing on-premises cloud computing to enterprises with proven Citrix Cloud and XenServer technology.

Flexxible|SmartWorkspaces for Citrix Cloud provides an innovative way to manage and monitor enterprise cloud infrastructure through a single pane of glass. The product is designed for companies of any size and has been verified as Citrix Ready as an on-site layer for on-premises computing for Citrix Cloud. It provides two storage options, including fast all-flash storage provided by the appliance, or by utilizing a user's existing network storage to leverage existing investments and reduce TCO. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct can be used for replication.

Flexxible|Hawk is a critical component shipped with Flexxible|SmartWorkspaces for Citrix Cloud. Flexxible|Hawk is a milestone innovation that provides multi-tenant and multi-environment cloud management from a single pane of glass. Hosted in Microsoft Azure, Flexxible|Hawk also allows the operations team to schedule and manage updates, and it extends Citrix Studio capabilities to support multiple global locations.

Cloudify and Fortinet have established a technology partnership to address the challenges of network functions virtualization (NFV) in order to help organizations quickly, effectively and securely provision and deploy new network services across hybrid environments-brownfield and greenfield-at a fraction of the time and risk.

The NFV reality of decoupling network functions from the underlying hardware on which they run is now here. With NFV, many physical network functions-like load balancers and firewalls-are becoming virtualized network functions (VNFs) that are shipped and delivered via software. Because VNFs are deployed only when needed, NFV can substantially improve network cost efficiency, responsiveness and security.

Egenera, a leading provider of wholesale cloud services to the channel today announced the launch of the Xterity Partner Program (XPP), a new program designed to empower the company's fast-growing network of resellers to capitalize on the exploding demand for cloud services in the SMB and mid-market.

Egenera's Xterity Cloud Services are sold 100 percent through the channel and deliver a full range of dedicated, managed, private and public cloud services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), Backup as a Service (BaaS), and cloud migration.

Cloud computing has made a massive difference to almost every industry, and it's a staple technology that many of us rely on each and every day. While there are many far-reaching benefits to the cloud when used for personal or business use, you may also be surprised to find out that it has actually had a positive impact on the auto industry. Below are some of the ways it has done just that.

Risk Reduction and Security

Car and truck owners may like to pimp up their vehicles with dual cat stacks and tinted windows, but those who want to improve the gadgetry in their autos, need to consider security. According to web security company McAfee, cybersecurity is as important for cars as it is for cell phones and computers. Cloud-based security can help to keep the car's technology safe from hackers, keeping it safe from problems. Users can create a personal encryption key and be notified of any threats before they cause damage to the vehicle in question.

Cloud computing is all the rage right now and is somewhat misunderstood by many. While many people swear by cloud applications, other prefer to have them localized. So, before you decide to opt for the cloud, it's very important to understand its strengths and limitations. Below are the pros and cons of cloud computing that you need to take into consideration.

Pros of Cloud Computing

1. No Cost of infrastructure

With cloud computing, you don't need to invest in infrastructure or hardware in any way. In general, you will need to spend a lot on servers, a specialized team, software, ISP connections, and storage when it comes to setting up a normal IT infrastructure. With cloud computing services, all you need is a cloud service provider and nothing more.

SoftNAS, Inc., a cloud data platform company and leading software-defined NAS provider for the cloud, announced SoftNAS Cloud Essentials version 3.7, optimized for Veeam Availability Suite, is available this month. SoftNAS also announced the achievement of Veeam Ready Archive status, verifying performance for full and synthetic full cloud-backup jobs using SoftNAS Cloud Essentials. SoftNAS and Veeam customers now have access to cost-effective multi-cloud storage options, while simultaneously improving RTPO (recovery time and point objectives) for data archival, backup and storage jobs. This partnership underscores SoftNAS' innovation as a truly cloud-native, 100% software-defined cloud data platform for enterprise control of any data, any cloud, anywhere.

Enterprises continue to struggle with managing vast amounts of data, including backups. Research conducted by The Taneja Group, found that 41 percent of planned public cloud workloads target backups. Cloud backup is one of the fastest growing technologies being adopted. According to Gartner's Hype Cycle for Storage Technology, 2017, "backup of data generated natively in public cloud is an emerging requirement as cloud providers only offer infrastructure high availability and disaster recovery, but are not responsible for application or user data loss."

Bonitasoft, the largest open source provider of low-code business process management and digital transformation software, announced today that along with the release of v7.6 of its flagship platform Bonita, it has signed a partnership agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This partnership will permit companies to effectively operate the Bonita platform with Amazon AWS cloud technology.

Bonita 7.6 comes with a brand-new platform add-on, Bonita Continuous Delivery, which automates provisioning of a Bonita platform so that deployment takes just a few minutes. This module can be added to the Bonita platform and leverages Ansible and Docker technologies for provisioning, along with provides advanced native Bonita capabilities to manage clustering deployments and platform backups. Applications on the Bonita platform are now fully compatible with both on-premises and AWS cloud deployments.

A positive public perception of your company is essential to maintaining your customer base, especially in times of crisis. From cloud data breaches and revelations about the personal lives of key staff members to manufacturing faults or customer service issues, having a strong brand can make it far easier to ride out any difficulties that your company may encounter.

Start small

Don't think you need to wait until your company is a behemoth in order to begin worrying about brand management. Even if you are a solo entrepreneur, there are plenty of ways to begin getting your message out, and this will ultimately pay great dividends as your company grows.

Bear in mind that, at this stage, the line between yourself and your company is virtually invisible and that everything you say, whether you intend it to be purely a personal opinion or not, will ultimately reflect on your company. Choose your words with care and ensure you are always in line with the expectations and perceptions of your brand.

CloudHealth Technologies, the leader in cloud service management, andParkMyCloud, the leading enterprise platform for continuous cost control in public cloud, today announced they are partnering to marry the hybrid cloud governance of CloudHealth with the automated cost control of ParkMyCloud.

Customers leveraging the integrated solution will experience greater return on their cloud investments. They will be able to automate cloud cost control, simplify management, and consequently free up teams to focus on driving more strategic projects within their organizations.

ZeroStack, Inc., creators of a self-driving on-premises cloud, today unveiled new host-based metrics that enable better, more proactive IT management of its cloud platform. Cloud administrators can now define and enable alerting policies based on the status of physical hosts. Alerting policies can be defined on specific host-based CPU utilization, storage, network bandwidth, and other parameters, providing proactive alerting that allows the IT department to control and monitor the cloud environment. This visibility ensures that DevOps workbench users have access to the resources they need without overloading IT infrastructure. DevOps users can also set up their own alerting policies within their workbench for monitoring the virtual resources they are using.

"With the addition of Managed Microsoft Azure Services, Cogeco Peer 1 is offering customers flexible, customizable solutions that enable them to unlock the full potential of Azure to accelerate their enterprise transformation," said Bertrand Labelle, Vice President Marketing and Innovation, Cogeco Peer 1. "These services will power the potential of businesses looking to simplify their journey to the cloud and optimize their investment in Azure. They will benefit from a secured, monitored and optimized Azure environment entirely designed for their specific business needs and managed by our team of experts. This is about optimizing return on investment for customers who don't always have the expertise or capacity to take full advantage of the power of Azure".

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, today announced that Comcast Cable has selected AWS as its preferred public cloud infrastructure provider. Comcast Cable will expand its use of AWS by migrating material workloads and building new applications on AWS.

AWS provides important infrastructure and services to Comcast as it focuses on building cloud-native products and services on AWS that adapt and evolve to meet the needs of customers. That focus is reflected in the class-defining X1 Platform, award-winning voice-control technology, and Xfinity xFi, Comcast's personalized Wi-Fi experience that gives customers pinpoint control over their home networks. Comcast's primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal, are currently running workloads on AWS which has enabled these businesses to become more nimble and launch new, revenue-generating initiatives in the competitive entertainment industry.

Today, organizations are employing a wide range of cloud services and transitioning data and applications to cloud computing environments. The topics of "interoperability" and "portability" are significant considerations in relation to the use of cloud services, but there is also confusion and misunderstanding of exactly what this entails. The aim of this guide is to provide a clear definition of interoperability and of portability and how these relate to various aspects of cloud computing and to cloud services.

Tintri, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise cloud platforms, today announced Neverfail, a global cloud IT service provider, has developed a comprehensive Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) platform with a secure private cloud built on Tintri's all-flash storage solution for replication. The new DRaaS solution connects Tintri storage solutions at customer sites and at Neverfail's data center for data to be quickly replicated and restored over a private cloud in the case of a disaster or emergency.

The joint solution incorporates a Tintri T5000 in Neverfail's data center to replicate with the customer's Tintri storage device, enabling images to be easily and quickly restored to Neverfail's private cloud and data center. Customers can use the solution to reduce spending on purchasing and managing onsite DR solutions.

DigitalOcean, the cloud for developers, today announced new pricing to deliver more memory, compute power and flexibility for customers at every price point. The offering will help businesses more confidently scale their deployments by providing the best value for performance and a flexible, predictable pricing model that makes billing simple.

"When we launched the Droplet five years ago, we offered a price point and product to help developers deploy their workloads quickly and easily. Now, we are seeing their projects grow, with many of them using DigitalOcean in a large-scale production environment," said Shiven Ramji, VP, Product, DigitalOcean. "While the rest of the market has offered complex discounts structured to force growth, we are focused on what our customers want most - a simple and predictable pricing model that enables them to rapidly scale their businesses without overpaying for the resources and flexibility they need."

Martin Hester, Strategic Consultant at Nuvias, looks at the networking trends that will shape 2018

1. Security First
Cyber threats are becoming ever more sophisticated and increasing in volume. In addition, remote working or working across multiple sites and multiple devices, together with an increasing reliance on cloud-based applications, have all served to weaken traditional perimeter-based security.

NVidia's new GeforceNow, a streaming service designed to enable gamers to run AAA titles on any computer, sparked a lot of interest about gaming in the cloud. What NVidia does is rent a capable gaming system via video streaming, so players can run graphic-intensive games remotely and have a great gaming experience.

NVidia GeforceNow may be the hottest thing right now, but experts believe that the future of gaming in the cloud lies with browser-based games that are simpler to play. Is this really the case?

The Rise of Web-Based Games

People, especially casual gamers, want simplicity. They want to be able to visit a site and start playing their favorite games right away. In many ways, the cloud infrastructure is the perfect environment for this type of gaming. Add the fact that there are better technologies for serving web-based games, and we have the perfect mix.

So you're a business that needs to keep data about your clients, or you've been thinking about upgrading your internal software tools. You know the cloud is "where it's at" these days, but migrating your entire database and software suite sounds like an absolute nightmare.

Panic not! Migrating to cloud services doesn't have to hurt, but transitioning without the headache does require some careful planning. A cloud transition is a continuous process, and although it can be made relatively painless, it's still quite difficult.

All About Cloud Security

This is one of the first headaches that people think about. Making sure employees are up to date on new accounts and security procedures is a hassle (no one likes coming up with new passwords!), and you might have concerns about the security implications of an off-site service hosting your data or your client's data.

"The ability to respond to a breach reaches well beyond corporate networks and databases with the sprawl of modern technology integrations," said Paul Kraus, CEO, Eastwind Networks. "Eastwind's SaaS offering enables enterprises to unify visibility by gathering and analyzing cloud telemetry from multiple SaaS providers so businesses can embrace new technologies while ensuring complete security of their cyber terrain."

As companies continue to integrate cloud services into their workflows, Eastwind for SaaS provides a full spectrum security platform. The solution integrates collection, analysis and enrichment of telemetry data from hosted applications into the workflow and hunt patterns of cyber threat incident responders. Benefits include: